Following the devastation of the First World War, the British utterly rejected the idea of fighting another major war in their near future. As a result, the country's interwar policies were not geared towards maintaining a powerful military. When the Second World War erupted, the British found themselves completely unprepared. The situation was particularly dire in the Middle East where British forces faced a numerically superior Italian army. Because Cairo and the Suez Canal were vital to... Show moreFollowing the devastation of the First World War, the British utterly rejected the idea of fighting another major war in their near future. As a result, the country's interwar policies were not geared towards maintaining a powerful military. When the Second World War erupted, the British found themselves completely unprepared. The situation was particularly dire in the Middle East where British forces faced a numerically superior Italian army. Because Cairo and the Suez Canal were vital to maintaining Britain's empire in the east, the British had no choice but to stand and fight. The man charged with defending Egypt was General Archibald P. Wavell, the commander-in-chief of the Middle East. Since his forces were out-numbered and poorly supplied, Wavell turned to deception to give his men an artificial advantage. After successfully carrying out deception in his first offensive against the Italians, Wavell decided to create an organization exclusively designed to deceive the enemy. To that end, he requested the services of Colonel Dudley Wrangel Clarke, an officer Wavell judged to be suitably unconventional in his approach to warfare. Clarke arrived in Cairo in December of 1940; by the end of March, 1941, he had created Britain's first deception organization - 'A' Force. Although 'A' Force's origins were humble, it developed into an impressive deception organization. With Clarke at its head, 'A' Force practiced deception on a scale unlikely repeated in the world. They were able to take advantage of modern technology, combined with innate creativity, to formulate some of the grandest deceptions of the war. Through a long and complex process of trial and error, Clarke and his men eventually perfected the art of deception. By the Battle of El Alamein, the deceptionists had created the blueprint that was to form the basis of all future deceptions. Thus, when the war reached Europe and London took over responsibility for coordinating Allied deception, the London deceivers modeled their efforts after those meticulously crafted by 'A' Force in Africa. In fact, the largest deception of the war, Operation Bodyguard (D-Day deception), was largely designed by men who had previously worked under Clarke and was based on the 'A' Force established blueprint. This work, which is the first to combine the military and deception histories into one cohesive narrative, argues that the British turned to deception out of pure necessity, that the deception machine was forged and perfected in the deserts of Africa ' not in London, and that the British were the masters of game. Show less

Date Issued

2009

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-7096

Format

Thesis

Title

"According to Their Capacities and Talents": Frontier Attorneys in Tallahassee during the Territorial Period.

The thesis identifies and describes the practice of attorneys in frontier Tallahassee during the Territorial Period. The thesis will also address dichotomies posed by past historians regarding the nature of the practice of law during the early- to mid-nineteenth centuries. The first, propounded by historian Roscoe Pound, maintains that this era was a period of decline in the legal profession, but also a "Golden Age." The second, posed by historian Jerold Auerbach, maintains that lawyers... Show moreThe thesis identifies and describes the practice of attorneys in frontier Tallahassee during the Territorial Period. The thesis will also address dichotomies posed by past historians regarding the nature of the practice of law during the early- to mid-nineteenth centuries. The first, propounded by historian Roscoe Pound, maintains that this era was a period of decline in the legal profession, but also a "Golden Age." The second, posed by historian Jerold Auerbach, maintains that lawyers during this period were "country lawyers" (in the model of Abraham Lincoln or Daniel Webster) or aristocrats. The thesis argues that attorneys practicing in frontier Tallahassee during this period were professional and quite competent; their actions do not give rise to the idea that this was a period of decline for the practice of law. The thesis also maintains that lawyers during this period were more in the model of aristocrats. The thesis also contains an appendix listing all those identified as have practiced in and about Tallahassee from 1824-1845 along with some brief biographical notes. Show less

Date Issued

2004

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-2639

Format

Thesis

Title

"Acribillados Y Torturados": Newspapers and the Militarized State in Counterrevolutionary Guatemala.

This thesis is a discursive analysis of the daily Guatemalan newspaper, El Imparcial. It is a cultural study of attitudes toward the illegitimate militarized state, the role of ethnicity and class, and modernization as a shared goal between traditional elites and the burgeoning class of military officers turned economic elites. Based on an examination of hundreds of pages of Guatemalan newspapers, spanning nearly a decade, and housed in special collections in the Latin American Libraries of... Show moreThis thesis is a discursive analysis of the daily Guatemalan newspaper, El Imparcial. It is a cultural study of attitudes toward the illegitimate militarized state, the role of ethnicity and class, and modernization as a shared goal between traditional elites and the burgeoning class of military officers turned economic elites. Based on an examination of hundreds of pages of Guatemalan newspapers, spanning nearly a decade, and housed in special collections in the Latin American Libraries of the University of Florida and Tulane University, the thesis treats topics such as how elites chose to make sense of a rapidly changing and uncertain world. The thesis focuses on three central elements: violence reporting, consumer and political advertising, and reporting of national development. I argue that El Imparcial, as a supposed elite vehicle within the militarized state, presents many contradictory messages for its readers. El Imparcial wavered in its political support for the state as demonstrated by the trends in violence reporting; the paper's consumer and political ads that sent similar contradictory messages of the state. Conversely, the adverts did send a consistent message of rigid social hierarchies promoted by a limited consumption style. El Imparcial's coverage of developmental projects reveals the paper's closest marriage to the militarized state. Development strategies served both civilian elites and the militarized state in mutually self-interested ways. Taken together, these elements reveal a complex cultural artifact with many opportunities for complicit and dissenting voices. It also shows how newspapers contributed to making the perception of violence into an unremarkable quotidian reality and how they encouraged the virulent dehumanization of Native peoples. The thesis shows the necessity of cultural history to explore the complexities of a contested history during a key transitional period in Guatemala's history, from a state dominated by elites and protected by the military, into a full fledged militarized state where military officers became coequals with traditional elites. Show less

Date Issued

2007

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-0910

Format

Thesis

Title

"All That Glitters Is Not Junkanoo" the National Junkanoo Museum and the Politics of Tourism and Identity.

The annual Junkanoo festival in the Bahamas is regarded as "the ultimate national symbol," representative of Bahamian sovereignty and culture. A festival that originated from Bahamian slaves, Junkanoo has evolved into a popular commercial and cultural event that features extravagant, crépe-paper costumes. This paper analyzes the role of the commodified Junkanoo costume in constructing a Bahamian national and cultural identity. Specifically, it analyzes the history and policies of the National... Show moreThe annual Junkanoo festival in the Bahamas is regarded as "the ultimate national symbol," representative of Bahamian sovereignty and culture. A festival that originated from Bahamian slaves, Junkanoo has evolved into a popular commercial and cultural event that features extravagant, crépe-paper costumes. This paper analyzes the role of the commodified Junkanoo costume in constructing a Bahamian national and cultural identity. Specifically, it analyzes the history and policies of the National Junkanoo Museum, the first institution to display the costumes outside their performative context. Through a interdisciplinary approach that incorporates methodologies from art history, sociology, and museum studies, I argue that Junkanoo serves a commercial purpose, which the National Junkanoo Museum perpetuates by displaying the costumes for touristic consumption. My thesis is based on three separate grounds of analysis. First, I examine the festival's hybrid and dynamic nature by analyzing external factors that influenced Junkanoo's development. Notably, I consider the Ministry of Tourism and the Bahamian Development Board's involvement and administration of the parade, which significantly impacted the costumes' iconography, materiality, and ephemerality. Next, I view the National Junkanoo Museum within the context of other Caribbean Museums to conclude that the institution encounters similar challenges to its neighbors, which include reconciling the museum's nationalistic intentions with its objectives to bolster cultural tourism. Finally, I demonstrate how the National Junkanoo Museum diverges from standard museum practice in order to augment the country's fledging heritage industry. Instead of assembling a permanent collection, the museum operates as a non-collecting institution by exhibiting the costumes only on an annual basis and then returning the objects to the Junkanoo artists who proceed to dismantle and recycle their costumes. The museum's exhibition policy reflects the artists' habit of abandoning their costumes immediately following the parade. However, I contend that the National Junkanoo Museum's use of nostalgia as a museum epistemology is less about an effort to restore the costumes' traditional ephemerality, than it is an indication of the pervasiveness of the tourism industry in formulating a Bahamian national and cultural identity. Junkanoo's economic potential is dependent on the perception of the festival as an identifiable, authentic Bahamian product, which the government facilitates by promoting the costumes as national symbols of Bahamian culture and appropriating them into a national museum system. Show less

Date Issued

2009

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-2809

Format

Thesis

Title

"And They'll March with Their Brothers to Freedom": Cumann na Mban, Nationalism, and Women's Rights in Ireland, 1900-1923.

Between the years 1900 and 1923, women in Ireland played an integral role in the nationalist movement. While several nationalist groups had female members, the women also founded their own nationalist organizations, Inghindhe na hEireann (Daughters of Ireland) and Cumann na mBan (Council of Women). These two groups indicated two different phases of the nationalist movement: Inghinidhe embodied the political and cultural aspects of women's participation in the move for Irish freedom, but... Show moreBetween the years 1900 and 1923, women in Ireland played an integral role in the nationalist movement. While several nationalist groups had female members, the women also founded their own nationalist organizations, Inghindhe na hEireann (Daughters of Ireland) and Cumann na mBan (Council of Women). These two groups indicated two different phases of the nationalist movement: Inghinidhe embodied the political and cultural aspects of women's participation in the move for Irish freedom, but Cumann na mBan, which had been organized as an auxiliary to the Irish Volunteers (later the IRA), added military activities to their agenda. Some Irish suffragists disliked nationalist women's groups because they felt that these drew recruits away from their ranks. At the same time, nationalist women ran their own suffrage campaign by helping the men in their revolutionary activity, which ultimately ended in women's equal citizenship in the first year of the Free State. Guerilla warfare, in particular, caused an expansion of women's roles and allowed them to transgress gendered boundaries. After the war women were not simply sent back to home, they continued their political work and agitated against new anti-feminist legislation. This thesis argues against many historians of Cumann na mBan who focus on the losses, rather than the achievements by the organization and its impact on women's roles in Ireland; women were agents of change who left a permanent impact on their political environment Show less

Date Issued

2005

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-2618

Format

Thesis

Title

"As Blond as Hitler": Positive Eugenics and Fatherhood in the Third Reich.

In seeking to build the Thousand Year Reich, the German government under the administration of the National Socialist party constructed many different ideologies to create the foundation for its new community. Although not as highly prominent others, the ideology of fatherhood had a role in the formation of this state. Because of the scientific trends prevalent during the early to mid twentieth century, fatherhood at this time had a strong biological bent; men were mainly regarded as fathers... Show moreIn seeking to build the Thousand Year Reich, the German government under the administration of the National Socialist party constructed many different ideologies to create the foundation for its new community. Although not as highly prominent others, the ideology of fatherhood had a role in the formation of this state. Because of the scientific trends prevalent during the early to mid twentieth century, fatherhood at this time had a strong biological bent; men were mainly regarded as fathers due to their reproductive contributions. Therefore, the Nazi government wanted to encourage each man to sustain his personal lineage because a healthy, burgeoning population would guarantee the longevity of the German nation founded by its leadership. In seeking a stronger and larger population, the Nazi party adopted a contemporary science movement: eugenics. The government divided people based on racial criteria, and the individuals whom it deemed most eligible to pass on their genes belonged to the "blond hair, blue eyed" Aryan race. After firmly establishing this archetype as the ultimate goal, the state had to disseminate this information to the general population and persuade these people to adopt this racial hierarchy willingly. It propagated this information through both formal education and direct contact with the German people through speeches and publications. This instruction served to inspire healthy citizens to have offspring who would strengthen the position of Germany through racial superiority. Of the male German population, the men who best personified the Aryan elite belonged to the Schutzstaffeln (SS). As the most unwavering followers of the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler, the soldiers of the SS provided the best paternal audience. The leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, sought to convince these men that their responsibilities included supplying the Third Reich with an abundance of racially healthy children. Himmler's directives and other documents substantiated this desire to encourage his men to reproduce copiously and to furnish Germany with a new aristocracy based on blood. Furthermore, the newspaper of the SS, Das Schwarze Korps, publicly correlated many of Himmler's perspectives. Articles, editorials, and letters encourage marriage, link SS men with images of healthy families, and promote fatherhood as a respectable and natural duty. Despite these efforts, the SS did not raise the birthrate in Germany, and the inability to produce enough children resulted in the failure of the eugenical measures. However, an investigation into the role of fatherhood during this era still addresses many historiographical issues. Beyond showing one way in which the Nazi government attempted to foster a new national community, it demonstrates the changing role of paternity throughout the twentieth century as well as merges with studies of German fatherhood in the post Second World War era. Examining fatherhood also explains the attempted application of eugenics to increase the population of a country. Finally, it dovetails with existing research on motherhood during the Third Reich, and therefore provides a more comprehensive understanding of familial life and parental relations during the reign of the Nazi regime. Show less

Date Issued

2005

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-4187

Format

Thesis

Title

"But where is his voice?: " The Debate of Pope Pius XII's Silence During the Holocaust.

Creator

Whitman, Kayleigh, Department of History

Abstract/Description

For the past sixty years the question of whether or not Pope Pius XII did all that he could to help the victims of the Holocaust has plagued the reputation and memory of his papacy. As the Vatican and Pope Francis continue proceedings towards the canonization of Pius, the question of what judgment can be placed against the pope becomes ever more pressing. My project examines the path that the debate has taken over the past six decades through the work of both the critics and defenders of His... Show moreFor the past sixty years the question of whether or not Pope Pius XII did all that he could to help the victims of the Holocaust has plagued the reputation and memory of his papacy. As the Vatican and Pope Francis continue proceedings towards the canonization of Pius, the question of what judgment can be placed against the pope becomes ever more pressing. My project examines the path that the debate has taken over the past six decades through the work of both the critics and defenders of His Holiness. While this thesis does not deliver a verdict against Pius, it does address the important question of how the contemporary reader can understand what has been written and the evolution of the charges that have been placed against him. In this paper Rolf Hochhuth serves as the leading example for the critics and Father Robert Graham S.J. serves as his defense counterpart. Beginning with these two men and their arguments, I examine the charges and responses of both the defenders and the critics during the controversial years of the 1960s and 1990s. Through this study I have found that though the Vatican's records remain sealed limiting the pool of information for researchers, the debate has continued to thrive because of the difference in perception of the two sides. The critics place their emphasis on the moral responsibility of the pope and the defenders focus their arguments on the political responsibility and implications of the pope's actions during this uncertain time. Show less

Date Issued

2014

Identifier

FSU_migr_uhm-0346

Format

Thesis

Title

"By the Noble Daring of Her Sons": The Florida Brigade of the Army of Tennessee.

Between 1861 and 1862, Floridians flocked to join the six regiments that eventually constituted the Florida Brigade of the West. As the fragile remains of the 1st and 3rd Florida's Battle Flag attests, portions of the brigade saw action in every major campaign of the Western Theater, save Iuka and Corinth. Until November 1863, the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Infantry Regiments and the dismounted 1st Cavalry Regiment, served in separate brigades in different areas of the west. While the 1st,... Show moreBetween 1861 and 1862, Floridians flocked to join the six regiments that eventually constituted the Florida Brigade of the West. As the fragile remains of the 1st and 3rd Florida's Battle Flag attests, portions of the brigade saw action in every major campaign of the Western Theater, save Iuka and Corinth. Until November 1863, the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Infantry Regiments and the dismounted 1st Cavalry Regiment, served in separate brigades in different areas of the west. While the 1st, 3rd, and 4th soldiered with the Army of Tennessee in major campaigns, the others protected the important Virginia-Tennessee railine against East Tennessee Unionists. Following the Florida Brigade's organization in November 1863, it became the epitome of the hardluck Army of Tennessee. Below strength, poorly armed, and shoddily equipped, the soldiers of the brigade followed their commanders through some of the hardest fighting of the war. From Missionary Ridge to Nashville, attrition whittled away at the small units. While many fell in battle, wounds incapacitated others, and still more wasted away in Northern prison camps. At the time of the surrender at Bennett Place, just over four hundred veterans remained with the brigade. Through "By The Noble Daring Of Her Sons," the story of these regiments, from their inceptions to their surrenders, will be told. While this dissertation seeks to describe the Florida Brigade's military campaign, that is not its sole purpose. Rather, "By The Noble Daring Of Her Sons" uses the context of the Florida Brigade to allow the reader to experience various aspects of the war, including important but little-known facets. Furthermore, this dissertation proposes that Florida, before the war was a fractured state, with citizens maintaining regional allegiances. The overarching theme of this study is to establish that the Floridians' service during the Civil War helped to create a state identity. Show less

Date Issued

2008

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-1768

Format

Thesis

Title

"Chosen Race": Baptist Missions and Mission Churches in the East and West Indies, 1795-1875.

In 1792, a group of preachers and artisans from the north of England responded to contemporary currents of revivalist religion by founding the Baptist Missionary Society to preach the gospel to the "heathen" abroad. These young Baptists, whose identity was deeply marked by a persecuted past and an ambivalent relationship with state power, carried their free church tradition with them into the mission field, where their belief in divine providence and their commitment to biblical primitivism... Show moreIn 1792, a group of preachers and artisans from the north of England responded to contemporary currents of revivalist religion by founding the Baptist Missionary Society to preach the gospel to the "heathen" abroad. These young Baptists, whose identity was deeply marked by a persecuted past and an ambivalent relationship with state power, carried their free church tradition with them into the mission field, where their belief in divine providence and their commitment to biblical primitivism deeply informed their work. Baptist identity and approach to missions changed over the nineteenth century as Dissenters gained socioeconomic status and political power, and independent voluntarism gave way to the organization and bureaucracy of the modern humanitarian movement. These shifts affected missionary identity and approaches, as well as the way the society leadership and its missionaries viewed converts and the possibility of independent mission churches. In South Asia and the Caribbean, secular colonials and officials viewed mission work warily, suspecting with reason that proselytization would undermine the racial and social hierarchies necessary to imperial success. Missionaries therefore faced significant political persecution in both spheres of empire, where they were viewed as subversive and undermining of colonial authority. Indigenous peoples in South Asia, particularly Bengali brahmans, also often looked upon missionaries with hostility; some, such as Brahmo Somaj founder Rammohun Roy, altered the Christianity they preached to serve their own needs and purposes. Converts lost caste as well as employment, and were often forced to cut all social ties upon professing Christ. Evangelism was more successful in the Caribbean, where slaves who converted often gained literacy, political advocacy, and a sense of community. Overall, convert decisions and experiences show that when colonized peoples chose to adopt Christianity, they built distinctly Asian or West Indian Christian communities which they increasingly led and supported themselves. Despite the fracturing and self-examination occasioned by changes within Baptist identity over the course of the century, the missionary society's commitment to a family of Christ that razed the boundaries of race, caste, and nation did make independent indigenous churches possible. Current historiography frequently links British missions to imperialism, viewing missionaries as importers—and constructors—of Englishness and converts as passive receivers of a colonizing Christianity. I hope to redirect our understanding of the missionary enterprise towards a greater sensitivity to the multivalent nature of missionary identity and, most importantly, the crucial contributions of indigenous converts and the communities they forged in the Empire. Baptist emphasis on native Christian church leadership and involvement, as well as missionary children's intermarriage with converts, help underline that, for the Baptists, the "chosen race" referred not to skin color or the burden of empire, but to election and sanctification by God. Show less

Date Issued

2010

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-0572

Format

Thesis

Title

"Conservation of the Child Is Our First Duty": Clubwomen, Organized Labor, and the Politics of Child Labor Legislation in Florida.

Florida's child welfare movement, a broad coalition of clubwomen, legislators, labor activists, and civic reformers, worked tirelessly to ensure that the right to a protected childhood was guaranteed to all of Florida's future citizens. These Progressive reformers, embracing new ideas about charity, the causes of poverty, and family life, turned to legislation to protect children when society could not, and their efforts culminated in the passage of Florida's comprehensive Child Labor Law in... Show moreFlorida's child welfare movement, a broad coalition of clubwomen, legislators, labor activists, and civic reformers, worked tirelessly to ensure that the right to a protected childhood was guaranteed to all of Florida's future citizens. These Progressive reformers, embracing new ideas about charity, the causes of poverty, and family life, turned to legislation to protect children when society could not, and their efforts culminated in the passage of Florida's comprehensive Child Labor Law in 1913. Florida's child labor campaign was part of both a regional and a national movement to eradicate the practice of manipulating children in industry and the street trades. Despite its inclusion in this broader movement, Florida's anti-child labor coalition was unique. Unlike their Southern neighbors, Floridians shied away from the rhetoric of "race suicide." Speaking on behalf of child labor legislation, they emphasized the social and moral disadvantages of child labor rather than its repercussions for race relations. This grew out of Florida's distinct pattern of economic development: Florida was among the last Southern states to industrialize, and that industrial sector did not include the textile mills notorious for child labor abuses across the South. Florida's child laborers primarily consisted of African Americans and Southern and Eastern European immigrants working in canneries along the Gulf Coast and Cuban and Italian immigrants laboring in the cigar industry of South Florida. Both of these industries employed a much smaller number of child workers than manufacturers in Florida's neighboring states. Florida's child labor legislation thus served two distinct purposes: it was both a preventative measure designed to protect Florida's children from the kinds of exploitation taking place in neighboring states and a means of pressuring those states to pass similar legislation. This thesis, an examination of the politics of Florida's child labor movement, highlights the ways in which the national child labor platform could be adapted to succeed in different states, while it reaffirms the diversity of both Progressive reform and Progressive reformers in the early twentieth-century South. Show less

Date Issued

2009

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-0193

Format

Thesis

Title

"Conservation of the Child Is Our First Duty": Clubwomen, Organized Labor, and the Politics of Child Labor Legislation in Florida.

Florida's child welfare movement, a broad coalition of clubwomen, legislators, labor activists, and civic reformers, worked tirelessly to ensure that the right to a protected childhood was guaranteed to all of Florida's future citizens. These Progressive reformers, embracing new ideas about charity, the causes of poverty, and family life, turned to legislation to protect children when society could not, and their efforts culminated in the passage of Florida's comprehensive Child Labor Law in... Show moreFlorida's child welfare movement, a broad coalition of clubwomen, legislators, labor activists, and civic reformers, worked tirelessly to ensure that the right to a protected childhood was guaranteed to all of Florida's future citizens. These Progressive reformers, embracing new ideas about charity, the causes of poverty, and family life, turned to legislation to protect children when society could not, and their efforts culminated in the passage of Florida's comprehensive Child Labor Law in 1913. Florida's child labor campaign was part of both a regional and a national movement to eradicate the practice of manipulating children in industry and the street trades. Despite its inclusion in this broader movement, Florida's anti-child labor coalition was unique. Unlike their Southern neighbors, Floridians shied away from the rhetoric of 'race suicide.' Speaking on behalf of child labor legislation, they emphasized the social and moral disadvantages of child labor rather than its repercussions for race relations. This grew out of Florida's distinct pattern of economic development: Florida was among the last Southern states to industrialize, and that industrial sector did not include the textile mills notorious for child labor abuses across the South. Florida's child laborers primarily consisted of African Americans and Southern and Eastern European immigrants working in canneries along the Gulf Coast and Cuban and Italian immigrants laboring in the cigar industry of South Florida. Both of these industries employed a much smaller number of child workers than manufacturers in Florida's neighboring states. Florida's child labor legislation thus served two distinct purposes: it was both a preventative measure designed to protect Florida's children from the kinds of exploitation taking place in neighboring states and a means of pressuring those states to pass similar legislation. This thesis, an examination of the politics of Florida's child labor movement, highlights the ways in which the national child labor platform could be adapted to succeed in different states, while it reaffirms the diversity of both Progressive reform and Progressive reformers in the early twentieth-century South. Show less

Natural resources, the environment, and conservation movements all played an important part in Florida's past, particularly within the last half of the twentieth century. As development of the built environment within Florida and the population increased, Floridians experienced a culture change that altered the ways that they viewed the environment and the accompanying natural elements. Numerous conservation movements emerged, and individuals became more aware of the effects of these... Show moreNatural resources, the environment, and conservation movements all played an important part in Florida's past, particularly within the last half of the twentieth century. As development of the built environment within Florida and the population increased, Floridians experienced a culture change that altered the ways that they viewed the environment and the accompanying natural elements. Numerous conservation movements emerged, and individuals became more aware of the effects of these developmental changes. From this ideological transformation, writers and artists used Florida's natural features as inspiration for works that reflect sentimentally on a more natural past and also attempted to invoke feelings of indignation at the detrimental changes happening around them. Each set of artistic works analyzed in this thesis are the products of this influence. The twentieth-century landscape paintings of Martin Johnson Heade and the mass-produced works of the Highwaymen both highlight the struggle that has plagued Florida since the beginning of its widespread development: the conflict between the desire to live somewhere that is exotic and natural and the need to civilize this place in order to make it inhabitable. Heade, a Hudson River School painter, moved to Florida in 1883 to take advantage of the landscapes and scenery that Florida had to offer. His scenes contained features such as conflicts between the civilized and wild and were more vibrant than his earlier works, suggesting that Florida was to be viewed differently from other parts of the country. The Highwaymen, a group of south Florida African American painters, act as a comparison group for Heade's works. Because one of the founders of the group, Alfred Hair, was trained by A. E. Backus, a white painter who was classically trained in the Hudson River School style, influences of this style can be found in the Highwaymen's paintings. Regardless of the similarities, the Highwaymen paintings were unique to specialized mass-production techniques. Both Heade and the Highwaymen were influenced an emerging tourism culture that enveloped Florida in the early and mid-twentieth century, and close examinations of their paintings reveal these nuances. Participants in the 1985 Florida license plate contest convey similar ecological themes in their entries. The results of the contest, over 3,500 images and letters, reveal Floridians' contemporary concerns. In addition, these entries reflect the increasing influence and continuity of a cohesive Florida image that highlights the natural characteristics of the state. Other issues discussed in that chapter will include people's perception of government process, the increasing awareness about conservation and environmental movements in Florida, and the ways that Floridians felt about their state in the 1980s. When the state of Florida's 2004 state quarter was minted with the images of a Sabal Palm, a Spanish galleon, and a launched space shuttle on its face, the long-standing developmental discourse was again reinforced through the images that were selected to represent Florida nationwide. The state quarter contest, and the chapter devoted to it, serves as an addendum to the 1985 license plate contest. The finalist selections were analyzed to reveal the narrowing focus of the Florida brand at a national level, to compare the images chosen with those submitted in the 1985, and to evaluate the differences and similarities between the conduct of the 1985 and 2002 contests. Ultimately, the outcome of the quarter contest shows that themes such as ecology, history, and recreation constitute Floridians' opinions of the state. Taken together, these three groups of artistic works show how pervasive and cohesive the Florida myth has become. In the conclusion, a brief analysis of a new ad campaign produced by VISIT FLORIDA, the state's official tourism advocacy organization, will show that with each passing year, these images of Florida became inherent to Floridian culture and identity as representative of the 'real' Florida. Show less

Date Issued

2008

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-7090

Format

Thesis

Title

"Dogmas Accepted as Divine": The Impact of Progressive Reforms in Florida's Public Schools.

The difficulties inherent in transferring control of educational responsibilities to the state and the antipathy it created within Florida have not been fully explored in previous scholarship, and a study of the drive toward centralization, replete with race and class issues, provides insight into both the nature of progressivism and education in Florida. This study serves to address that missing scholarship. This project examines the course of Progressive Era reforms in statewide education... Show moreThe difficulties inherent in transferring control of educational responsibilities to the state and the antipathy it created within Florida have not been fully explored in previous scholarship, and a study of the drive toward centralization, replete with race and class issues, provides insight into both the nature of progressivism and education in Florida. This study serves to address that missing scholarship. This project examines the course of Progressive Era reforms in statewide education in Florida's primary and secondary schools (that is, first through twelfth grades). Specifically, it focuses on both the theories behind reforms as well as the application of those theories. Included in this is an examination of the impact of race and class on proposed and implemented reforms. Special attention is paid to vocational education. Show less

Date Issued

2005

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-1369

Format

Thesis

Title

"Don't Strip Tease for Anophlese": A History of Malaria Protocols during World War II.

This study focuses on the American anti-malaria campaign beginning in 1939. Despite the seemingly endless scholarship on World War II in the past seventy years, little has been written on the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal. Through extensive archival research, the breadth of the anti-malaria campaign throughout the Pacific is explored as a positive side effect of the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal in 1942-1943. While most scholars of the Pacific war mention the devastating effects of... Show moreThis study focuses on the American anti-malaria campaign beginning in 1939. Despite the seemingly endless scholarship on World War II in the past seventy years, little has been written on the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal. Through extensive archival research, the breadth of the anti-malaria campaign throughout the Pacific is explored as a positive side effect of the malaria epidemic on Guadalcanal in 1942-1943. While most scholars of the Pacific war mention the devastating effects of malaria during the battle for Guadalcanal, few have examined the malaria protocols. Through intensified atabrine discipline, bed nets, mosquito repellant, and an intense cultural war against malaria, the United States military won the war against the anopheles mosquito. Moreover, research and development in the years leading up to war fundamentally changed the way large-scale scientific and medical research is conducted in the United States, including the establishment of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Show less

Date Issued

2013

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-7640

Format

Thesis

Title

"Ears and Eyes and Mouth and Heart… His Soul and His Senses": The Visual St. Stephen Narrative as the Essence of Ecclesiastical Authority.

Narrative cycles of St. Stephen, proto-martyr, are common, frequently found on ecclesiastical monuments of thirteenth-century France. The cathedrals of Bourges, Chartres, and Paris, to name only a few, support visual imagery inspired by the legend of Stephen. Ordained by the apostles, ostensibly to aid the widows and orphans of the congregation, Stephen quickly shows himself "full of grace and fortitude" (Acts 6:8). His inspired, vitriolic sermon incurs the wrath of the Jews who lead him from... Show moreNarrative cycles of St. Stephen, proto-martyr, are common, frequently found on ecclesiastical monuments of thirteenth-century France. The cathedrals of Bourges, Chartres, and Paris, to name only a few, support visual imagery inspired by the legend of Stephen. Ordained by the apostles, ostensibly to aid the widows and orphans of the congregation, Stephen quickly shows himself "full of grace and fortitude" (Acts 6:8). His inspired, vitriolic sermon incurs the wrath of the Jews who lead him from the city of Jerusalem and stone him. The prevalence of Stephen's cult in the Gothic cathedrals of medieval France has been recognized by scholars; however, little attention has been devoted to the bishops' development and use of the cult, or the churches' production or interpretation of visual imagery. Explanations of the extant images have been driven by text based, iconographic models, which have often obfuscated the relevance of intricate compositional elements and relationships that are key to a more artistically and historically relevant understanding of the compositions. The intricately sculpted Stephen cycles in thirteenth-century France and the historic circumstances that informed their conceptions and receptions are the subjects of this dissertation. Drawing from a survey of the extant, architectural, sculptural narratives and relevant historical resources, this dissertation begins with a discussion of the establishment and dissemination of Stephen's cult in France. The following chapters focus specifically on the thirteenth-century images at the cathedrals of Rouen, Arles, Paris and Bourges chosen for their intricacy and unique compositional formulations. Ultimately, I propose the retelling of the Jewish/Christian debate at the root of Stephen's story was subtly reconstructed by ecclesiastical officials and articulated by artists to reference and comment on contemporary anti-Jewish conflict and ideologies in the mind of the medieval, Christian viewer. I continue to argue that St. Stephen was an exemplar of ecclesiastical succession and an idealized manifestation of the extension of the bishop's power within the ecclesiastical hierarchy. In addition to situating the proto-martyr's imagery in social and political context, this endeavor also contributes to the broader understanding of the construction and function of pictorial, hagiographic narrative. Show less

Between 1861 and 1865 Florida placed 15,000 of its citizens under the Confederate banner. Nearly 6,000 of these civilians-turned-soldiers, in six regiments, would see service in the Western theater, or the area encompassing the lands between the Appalachian Mountains in the East and the Mississippi River in the West. Other than Fort Donelson, Florida troops were present in every campaign fought by the Army of Tennessee, the most well-known Confederate Army in the theater. Through casualties,... Show moreBetween 1861 and 1865 Florida placed 15,000 of its citizens under the Confederate banner. Nearly 6,000 of these civilians-turned-soldiers, in six regiments, would see service in the Western theater, or the area encompassing the lands between the Appalachian Mountains in the East and the Mississippi River in the West. Other than Fort Donelson, Florida troops were present in every campaign fought by the Army of Tennessee, the most well-known Confederate Army in the theater. Through casualties, sickness, and desertion, the brigade's number declined and at the surrender of the Army in 1865, little more than 350 remained to follow the colors. Through "Everyday Soldiers," the story of these regiments will be told, from their inceptions in Florida in the first year and a half of the conflict, through the disastrous Confederate campaign into Kentucky in the late summer and early fall of 1862. Few other theses have dealt with this unit, and in the instances that some did, few pages were devoted to their activities. This thesis will eventually become apart of the first complete history of the "Florida Brigade." Furthermore, through the letters, diaries, and memoirs of these soldiers from Florida, the lives of the soldier of the western theater can be discovered. Show less

In this paper, I suggest that the Byzantine Patriarch Photios (r. 858-867, 877-886) used the composition of the apse mosaic of the Theotokos and Christ-Child and its relationship to the light within Hagia Sophia to his political advantage. I propose that on Holy Saturday, 867, Photios attempted to counteract political threats through his Homily 17, which dedicated the apse mosaic, the first figural image installed in Hagia Sophia after the end of Iconoclasm. In Byzantine liturgy, the emperor... Show moreIn this paper, I suggest that the Byzantine Patriarch Photios (r. 858-867, 877-886) used the composition of the apse mosaic of the Theotokos and Christ-Child and its relationship to the light within Hagia Sophia to his political advantage. I propose that on Holy Saturday, 867, Photios attempted to counteract political threats through his Homily 17, which dedicated the apse mosaic, the first figural image installed in Hagia Sophia after the end of Iconoclasm. In Byzantine liturgy, the emperor played a ceremonial role as the embodiment of Christ, an idea that was widely propagated, for example, by images of Christ on imperial coins. I argue that Photios emphasized his own ceremonial role as a "God Bearer" and appropriated the image of the Theotokos as his own opposing political symbol. With the dedication of the Theotokos image, Photios garnered the visual language needed to oppose imperial authority and created an opportunity to assert his Iconophile polemic. Homily 17 is a result of the continuation of the Iconoclast controversy that persisted since the so-called Truimph of Orthodoxy in 843. Through Photios's dedication of the apse image and its relationship to Hagia Sophia's liturgy, the apse mosaic became a performative image. The activation of the apse mosaic as a performative image is due in part to the effect of light caused by the reflection of the sun off of the gold and glass tesserae. Rico Franses discusses how this light effect creates visual layers of bright golden reflections and dark areas of matte glass in the mosaic's composition. He suggests that these layers convey Orthodox theology to the church's congregation. He explains that the changing light in Hagia Sophia, as the sun rises and lowers, and the effect of the reflected light on the gold tessarae illuminate either the Theotokos or the Christ Child. I propose that Photios took advantage of Hagia Sophia's unique light effect in order to emphasize the Theotokos and his own ceremonial role as a "God Bearer" over the Christ-Child in the political rhetoric of Homily 17 and the liturgy of Hagia Sophia. Show less

This historical study will examine four lynchings that took place in Florida during the 1940s. The investigations include the lynching of A. C. Williams in Gadsden County in 1941; Cellos Harrison in Jackson County in 1943; Willie James Howard in Suwannee County in 1944; and Jesse James Payne in Madison County in 1945. In addition to describing the circumstances surrounding each incident, this study also discusses the reaction of local law enforcement, Florida state public officials, the... Show moreThis historical study will examine four lynchings that took place in Florida during the 1940s. The investigations include the lynching of A. C. Williams in Gadsden County in 1941; Cellos Harrison in Jackson County in 1943; Willie James Howard in Suwannee County in 1944; and Jesse James Payne in Madison County in 1945. In addition to describing the circumstances surrounding each incident, this study also discusses the reaction of local law enforcement, Florida state public officials, the federal government, and the press. To tell these stories, the study relied on records from local and state governments, investigative records of the U. S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and, oral history from family members and residents of the communities in which these lynchings occurred. The study gives these incidents further exploration, in attempting to fit them into the chronology of the lynching phenomenon in the United States by extracting similarities as well as changes in the practice of lynching itself. These lynchings also indicate an increasingly negative reaction but segments of the American public against such acts of violence. This was due in part to U. S. participation in World War II and the government's increasing concern about the nation's international reputation. Show less

Date Issued

2004

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-4014

Format

Thesis

Title

“Laborers Together with God”: Civilian Public Service and Public Health in the South during World War II.

During World War II, the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 required conscientious objectors (COs) who opposed any form of military service to perform "work of national importance under civilian direction." The program that carried out this alternative service was the Civilian Public Service (CPS), in which approximately 12,000 pacifists served at 151 camps established across the nation during the war. Some of those camps were in Florida and Mississippi, where CPS men worked with... Show moreDuring World War II, the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 required conscientious objectors (COs) who opposed any form of military service to perform "work of national importance under civilian direction." The program that carried out this alternative service was the Civilian Public Service (CPS), in which approximately 12,000 pacifists served at 151 camps established across the nation during the war. Some of those camps were in Florida and Mississippi, where CPS men worked with state and local public health authorities to combat diseases that plagued the South's poor, including hookworm and malaria. Though an advance over previous options for COs, CPS was not always well-received, by either the American people or the men who served within it. This dissertation will examine the camps in Florida and Mississippi to assess the success (or lack thereof) of the CPS alternative service program during the war, and also to explore the larger question of how well the United States upholds and protects the right of its citizens (particularly, nonconformist citizens) during a time of national crisis. Show less

Date Issued

2015

Identifier

FSU_2015fall_Tomlinson_fsu_0071E_12875

Format

Thesis

Title

"Let Us Try to Make Each Other Happy, and Not Wretched": the Creek-Georgian Frontier, 1776-1796.

"Let us try to make each other happy" tracks a Creek-Georgia frontier as it emerged in the American Revolution and lasted to the turn of the nineteenth century. There multiple groups of Creeks, Americans, and Europeans grappled with ideas of sovereignty and the right of self-determination. The Creek-Georgian frontier, however, embraces conceptualizations of frontiers as places where misunderstanding bred distrust, fear, localized violence, and eventually, racial hatred, challenging older... Show more"Let us try to make each other happy" tracks a Creek-Georgia frontier as it emerged in the American Revolution and lasted to the turn of the nineteenth century. There multiple groups of Creeks, Americans, and Europeans grappled with ideas of sovereignty and the right of self-determination. The Creek-Georgian frontier, however, embraces conceptualizations of frontiers as places where misunderstanding bred distrust, fear, localized violence, and eventually, racial hatred, challenging older definitions of frontiers as places of accommodation or mutual understanding. Multiple groups faced each other, and what they created was a place of terrible brutality where extremism, not compromise, was the natural way of things."Let us try to make each other happy" blends a New Indian History approach with recent interpretations of frontiers as areas of empire and nation-building. Italso carefully outlines how Creek decisions ordered Georgian lives on the backcountry, and embraces the importance of community-level identity in the study of Early American history. Ultimately, I utilize Creek, Georgian, and European threads to weave a twenty-year narrative of misunderstanding and violence that, as I argue, had tremendous bearing on the development of the southeast. Show less

Date Issued

2013

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-8707

Format

Thesis

Title

"Malta Is a Magnificent Story": Malta's Symbolic Role in the Second World War.

This thesis examines Malta's symbolic role in the Second World War. Then a Britishheld colony, the archipelago fell under heavy Axis bombardment from mid 1940 – early 1943. Incessant Italian and German air raids plagued the islands and the Maltese, making Malta the most heavily bombed area of the entire war. In June 1940, just weeks before the first attack, London's War Cabinet deemed the isles indefensible and withdrew their forces. Despite this initial abandonment, the British permanently... Show moreThis thesis examines Malta's symbolic role in the Second World War. Then a Britishheld colony, the archipelago fell under heavy Axis bombardment from mid 1940 – early 1943. Incessant Italian and German air raids plagued the islands and the Maltese, making Malta the most heavily bombed area of the entire war. In June 1940, just weeks before the first attack, London's War Cabinet deemed the isles indefensible and withdrew their forces. Despite this initial abandonment, the British permanently returned to their colony just a few months later and expended a considerable amount of manpower and materiel in its defense. Tactical reasons alone cannot explain this drastic reversal in British policy. The missing explanation lies with Malta's role in British propaganda. Whether by choice or ignorance, this crucial aspect of Malta's wartime purpose is absent from the historiography. Through an examination of official papers and popular periodicals, this thesis aims to correct this imbalance. To provide proper context, the work first analyzes Anglo- Maltese relations and the empire's position in the latter half of the 1930s. The subsequent chapters analyze the media's role in the War Cabinet's return, and how Prime Minister Winston Churchill used the gallant tale of Malta to bolster morale at home and elicit the cooperation of the United States. Paired with strategic objectives around the Mediterranean basin, these propagandistic concerns ensured Britain's continued defense of the archipelago. Through the war's end, Malta served as both a physical and ideological bastion for the British Empire. Show less

Date Issued

2011

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-4665

Format

Thesis

Title

"Malta Is a Magnificent Story": Malta's Symbolic Role in the Second World War.

This thesis examines Malta's symbolic role in the Second World War. Then a British-held colony, the archipelago fell under heavy Axis bombardment from mid 1940 ' early 1943. Incessant Italian and German air raids plagued the islands and the Maltese, making Malta the most heavily bombed area of the entire war. In June 1940, just weeks before the first attack, London's War Cabinet deemed the isles indefensible and withdrew their forces. Despite this initial abandonment, the British permanently... Show moreThis thesis examines Malta's symbolic role in the Second World War. Then a British-held colony, the archipelago fell under heavy Axis bombardment from mid 1940 ' early 1943. Incessant Italian and German air raids plagued the islands and the Maltese, making Malta the most heavily bombed area of the entire war. In June 1940, just weeks before the first attack, London's War Cabinet deemed the isles indefensible and withdrew their forces. Despite this initial abandonment, the British permanently returned to their colony just a few months later and expended a considerable amount of manpower and materiel in its defense. Tactical reasons alone cannot explain this drastic reversal in British policy. The missing explanation lies with Malta's role in British propaganda. Whether by choice or ignorance, this crucial aspect of Malta's wartime purpose is absent from the historiography. Through an examination of official papers and popular periodicals, this thesis aims to correct this imbalance. To provide proper context, the work first analyzes Anglo-Maltese relations and the empire's position in the latter half of the 1930s. The subsequent chapters analyze the media's role in the War Cabinet's return, and how Prime Minister Winston Churchill used the gallant tale of Malta to bolster morale at home and elicit the cooperation of the United States. Paired with strategic objectives around the Mediterranean basin, these propagandistic concerns ensured Britain's continued defense of the archipelago. Through the war's end, Malta served as both a physical and ideological bastion for the British Empire. Show less

Date Issued

2011

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-7124

Format

Thesis

Title

"Music's Most Powerful Ally": The National Federation of Music Clubs as an Institutional Leader in the Development of American Music Culture, 1898-1919.

This dissertation explores the founding of the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) in 1898 and focuses upon the organization's activities from its beginning to 1920. It highlights how the original members were able to build a strong and influential institution that continues to support American music and musicians today. The creation of the NFMC is a result of two developments that occurred simultaneously during the nineteenth-century in the United States: 1) the proliferation of... Show moreThis dissertation explores the founding of the National Federation of Music Clubs (NFMC) in 1898 and focuses upon the organization's activities from its beginning to 1920. It highlights how the original members were able to build a strong and influential institution that continues to support American music and musicians today. The creation of the NFMC is a result of two developments that occurred simultaneously during the nineteenth-century in the United States: 1) the proliferation of voluntary associations and organized reform movements and 2) the emergence of high art music culture across the nation. This project applies gender theory to examine the development of the notion of the domestic sphere as the appropriate domain for the female sex in the nineteenth century, and how women reacted to dominant ideologies through voluntary organizations that broadened their world. It also utilizes recent scholarship in women's history, social history, early American history, and institutional studies to present a survey of the types of organizations that formed and how they changed in response to the social and historical context. Even though the NFMC was originally a women's institution run by and for women, its larger goal was to disseminate art music culture through local club activities across the nation to all citizens. The growth of women's music clubs was part of the post-civil war boom of women's culture clubs. The concept of music as art developed and spread steadily during the nineteenth century, and at first the music clubs specifically cultivated art music based on western European traditions, which was associated with high class refinement. European ideals were perpetuated by an influx of European touring virtuosos and groups during the first half of the nineteenth century. In her article titled "Art Music from 1800 to 1860," Katherine K. Preston explains that the polished concerts performed by touring musicians not only circulated art music among Americans, but they also introduced higher performance standards, which resulted in increasingly higher expectations for refined performances from American audiences starting in the 1820s and 1830s and surging after 1840. These performances were supported and promoted by patrons and institutions, which ultimately led to the growth of art music appreciation as a movement throughout the nation. Michael Broyles clarifies that even though European style was dominant during the nineteenth century, American musical culture was uniquely formed by "historical events that have no European counterpart." He states that institutions controlled the character of the music in the United States. The support and dissemination of American art music happened through a combination of civic, philanthropic, private, and entrepreneurial activities, which included: the spread of art music through touring virtuosos and ensembles on a much larger scale than the first half of the nineteenth century, women's music clubs, orchestras, monster concerts and festivals, an increase in the number of American-born composers during the late nineteenth century, and a growing sense of patriotism at the turn of the century. During the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries, women's music clubs became one of the most effective cultivators of classical music in the United States through their strong infrastructure and collaboration with prominent musicians, critics, and pedagogues. This project highlights the integral role of the NFMC's activities in many of the significant developments in the history of American music at this time. No other institution has been as ubiquitous or influential as the NFMC in the musical growth of the United States. This dissertation is the first detailed exploration of the history of this powerful institution. Show less

Date Issued

2017

Identifier

FSU_2017SP_Hedrick_fsu_0071E_13773

Format

Thesis

Title

"Point at One, Abuse Another": Framing WWII in Chinese and Japanese Middle School Textbooks, 1950-1990.

The recent two decades have witnessed a developing historical debate between China and Japan. Standing in the center of this debate are different historical interpretations presented in textbooks. Both China and Japan seem to blame each other for promoting supposedly politically-biased historical education. This has become a growing problem causing wide concerns even internationally: on the one hand, there is an increasing debate about the supposed existence of "Anti-Japanese" education in... Show moreThe recent two decades have witnessed a developing historical debate between China and Japan. Standing in the center of this debate are different historical interpretations presented in textbooks. Both China and Japan seem to blame each other for promoting supposedly politically-biased historical education. This has become a growing problem causing wide concerns even internationally: on the one hand, there is an increasing debate about the supposed existence of "Anti-Japanese" education in China since the last decade of 20th century; on the other, many scholars from China, Japan and the Western world also criticize what they see as a distorted (or omitted) history of the war presented in Japanese textbooks. According to the "framing" theories introduced by scholars such as Foucault, Giltin, Gamson, and Modigliani in the late 20th century, history textbooks, just like media, could "organize the world" both for authors who wrote them and students who rely on them. There are many skills in framing history in textbooks and one of them is the skill of "pointing at one [to] abuse another." Using a specific technique to analyze the interplays between changing politics and educational narratives surrounding World War II (which began in China in 1937) in Chinese and Japanese middle school textbooks during a certain period: 1950-1990, the paper aims to discover the history of changing narratives about World War II in both Chinese and Japanese middle school history textbooks and how they interacted with politics over time. Show less

Date Issued

2016

Identifier

FSU_2016SP_Shi_fsu_0071N_13252

Format

Thesis

Title

"Pure Religion of the Gospel…Together with Civil Liberty": A Study of the Religion Clauses of the Northwest Ordinance and Church-State in Revolutionary America.

The Ordinance of 1787 provided the method for territories of the Old Northwest to become states. It set out a three-stage process that territories would pass through in order to acquire full rights of statehood. Furthermore, it contained six Articles of Compact between Congress on behalf of the extant states and the states to be created out of the territory. These articles provided guarantees of fundamental rights and liberties for the future states, including religious practice and belief.... Show moreThe Ordinance of 1787 provided the method for territories of the Old Northwest to become states. It set out a three-stage process that territories would pass through in order to acquire full rights of statehood. Furthermore, it contained six Articles of Compact between Congress on behalf of the extant states and the states to be created out of the territory. These articles provided guarantees of fundamental rights and liberties for the future states, including religious practice and belief. The first article provided that "no person, demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments in the said territory." Article Three stated that, "religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." This study uncovers how ideas on government, law, and religion led to the drafting of the religion clauses of the Northwest Ordinance. Scholars have spent little time examining the philosophical underpinnings of the statements on religion contained in the Northwest Ordinance. This study demonstrates that these statements were not mere afterthoughts, but were thick and complex statements on how the state and the church should be related. The legislative history of the Northwest Ordinance indicates that the language for the religion clauses appeared just before the document's passage, but it also seems that the drafters drew upon a deep well of theological and philosophical beliefs and applied them to a specific political and economic context. The theological ideas included Puritan and evangelical ideas like millennarianism, free will, true virtue, and covenant. Philosophical views included both Enlightenment philosophy and civic republicanism. Part of the exploration of this question occurs within the context of the debate of church and state relations in Revolutionary Virginia and Massachusetts. This is necessary for a number of reasons. First, it narrows the scope of the study without sacrificing important historical developments. A study of this sort that does not limit itself geographically can quickly become unmanageable. To include the developments in the negotiation over church and state in all thirteen colonies would be to ask for an unwieldy study that would not necessarily reach significantly different conclusions from a more limited one. The struggle over church and state in the Virginia and Massachusetts contexts represented the most important and illustrative developments. The state governments of Virginia and Massachusetts and their representatives played influential roles in the drafting of the Northwest Ordinance. Thus, considering these developments will provide a helpful understanding of the ideological antecedents of the religion clauses of the Northwest Ordinance. Virginia and Massachusetts served as microcosmic representations for the church-state debate in the Revolutionary period. It is both within this indirect and broader microcosmic connection, as well as more direct connections to the Northwest Ordinance itself that the importance of the Massachusetts and Virginia debates are derived. Virginia reached a liberal principle of religious liberty before most of the other states and thus became an example for the other states of how the fusion of Protestant dissension and Christian voluntarism could lead to antiestablishment thought and a liberal expression of religious toleration. Opponents of establishment in many of the other states cited Virginia's thinkers in their own constitutional moves toward disestablishment. Virginia shared a direct connection with the Northwest Ordinance in two ways. First, the Virginia Legislature had to cede all of her land claims to the Northwest Territory before the Continental Congress could create a territorial policy for the Northwest. Virginia gentry also drafted portions of or served on several of the key committees in the legislative history of the Northwest Ordinance. Virginian Thomas Jefferson composed the Ordinance of 1784, the first national expression of territorial policy for the Northwest. His Ordinance provided a basis for the development of the Northwest Ordinance. Virginian James Monroe proposed changes to Jefferson's Ordinance, helping to draft key sections of the Northwest Ordinance. Monroe's ideas included how many states should be created out of the Northwest Territory and under what conditions these states should enter the Union. Monroe embraced a New England style of territorial development, urging that the Northwest Territory should be settled by townships and in an organized fashion. One of the significant reasons Monroe embraced this style of territorialism was because of the Ohio Company and the large number of New England Revolutionary War veterans who made up the Company's membership rolls and wanted to settle the Northwest Territory under principles consonant with their own particular New England beliefs. The importance of the teaching of natural religion was cited by both opponents and supporters of establishment in revolutionary Massachusetts. Supporters of limited establishment, in the guise of Article Three of the proposed 1780 constitution, argued that the governmental support of religion had social utilitarian importance. Supporters of Article Three argued that the teaching of the doctrine of a future state of rewards or punishment inculcated virtue into the Massachusetts citizenry. Opponents of Article Three, like the anonymous New Light writer Philanthropos, opposed the teaching of fundamental Calvinist principles, like the doctrine of future states, because they saw the teaching of these principles by the government as antithetical to notions of the inviolability of individual conscience. Opponents of Article Three supported the right of individual conscience to such an extent that on at least one occasion, opponents practiced civil disobedience in the closing of the courts in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. The leader of the civil disobedient group, the Berkshire Consitutionalists, was Thomas Allen. As noted above, Allen practiced a rigid Calvinist orthodoxy. He was a member of the New Divinity movement that believed in the importance of retaining strict theological principles, while still allowing for a socially active form of Christianity. This social activism stemmed from interpretations of the nature of true virtue that originated in the mind of Jonathan Edwards. Consistent Calvinists embraced these Edwardsean notions and extended them to causes like abolition or disestablishment. The Reverend Thomas Allen embraced New Divinity ideas and helped to influence the church-state debate in Massachusetts. The church-state debate in Massachusetts also had a direct link to the drafting of the religion clauses of the Northwest Ordinance in two other ways. Manasseh Cutler, land agent for the Ohio Company, hailed from Massachusetts. He, more than probably anyone else, influenced the text of the Ordinance and the timing of its passage. As described above, Cutler's biography linked several of the key arguments made for the territorial policy articulated in the Northwest Ordinance. Finally, it seems that the authors of the Northwest Ordinance's Articles of Compact culled the Massachusetts Constitution 1780 for the specific language of the Ordinance's religion clauses. Thus, a greater understanding of the Revolutionary Massachusetts church-state narrative, along with the story of church-state relations as they developed in Virginia, yields some of the intentions of the framers of the Northwest Ordinance's religion clauses. The final portion of this study is shorter and much more speculative. The study contemplates the Ordinance's influence upon the drafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights vis-à-vis the religion clauses of each document. Many members of the Continental Congress were also members of the Constitutional Convention. Members of the Confederation Congress corresponded heavily with members of the Constitutional Convention and vice versa. Thus, it is hard to imagine that each body did not know what the other was doing. Furthermore, the First Congress readopted the Northwest Ordinance just days before debating what would become the First Amendment. So, it can be assumed that the Northwest Ordinance is constitutional and that it also served as an example and influence in the drafting of the Bill of Rights. This area of study is much more speculative in nature and ultimately the discussion in this thesis is more suggestive of future directions of study. It raises questions about the constitutional effect of the Northwest Ordinance with respect to the issue of church and state and broader issues of religion and politics in the Revolutionary Period. Show less

Date Issued

2007

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-1032

Format

Thesis

Title

"Stack 'Em High and Sell 'Em Cheap": James "Doc" Webb and Webb's City, St. Petersburg, Florida.

This study documents the story of James Earl "Doc" Webb and his business, Webb's City, between the years 1926-1982. Starting in 1926 as a small 17 by 28 foot store, Webb's City soon grew to a multi-million dollar business known as "The World's Most Unusual Drug Store." By 1970, the business grew to encompass ten city blocks, with seventy-two individual stores therein, including parking for 3,000 cars. Doc Webb's business empire included gas stations, an Outpost in Tampa, and a second "city"... Show moreThis study documents the story of James Earl "Doc" Webb and his business, Webb's City, between the years 1926-1982. Starting in 1926 as a small 17 by 28 foot store, Webb's City soon grew to a multi-million dollar business known as "The World's Most Unusual Drug Store." By 1970, the business grew to encompass ten city blocks, with seventy-two individual stores therein, including parking for 3,000 cars. Doc Webb's business empire included gas stations, an Outpost in Tampa, and a second "city" in Pinellas Park. At its peak it employed over 1,700 people. This work focuses on Doc Webb's innovation in the business field, his fight against price-fixing and Fair Trade Laws, his influence on St. Petersburg, his customers –primarily African Americans and the elderly –and his role in advertising and self-promotion. Doc Webb and Webb's City's long lasting legacy in St. Petersburg and in business history is also discussed in this study. Show less

Date Issued

2003

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-1832

Format

Thesis

Title

"This Ain't Gringoland": The Salvadoran Civil War in U.S. Popular Film.

This thesis examines the portrayal of the Salvadoran Civil War in two popular U.S. films, Salvador (1986) and Romero (1989). Using a variety of sources as well as the films, this thesis is a cultural study of the images and words used by the filmmakers to render El Salvador recognizable to American audiences. The study focuses on both the ideology of the filmmakers as well as the development of historical characterizations in the films. The findings of this study demonstrate the role of... Show moreThis thesis examines the portrayal of the Salvadoran Civil War in two popular U.S. films, Salvador (1986) and Romero (1989). Using a variety of sources as well as the films, this thesis is a cultural study of the images and words used by the filmmakers to render El Salvador recognizable to American audiences. The study focuses on both the ideology of the filmmakers as well as the development of historical characterizations in the films. The findings of this study demonstrate the role of individual bias in representing foreign others as well as the ways in which perpetual stereotypes of Latin America are employed in American cinema. This study, in addition to demonstrating the historicity of the films herein discussed, also situates the portrayal of historical events within the larger context of the Cold War and the Salvadoran Civil War. Show less

Abstract: (Key Terms: Collective Framework, Rhetorical Theory, Trafalgar Square, Spatial Narratives) This thesis is a rhetorical examination of language as elicited in spatial narratives. In doing so, it examines the various symbols that public spaces employ in order to rhetorically speak to us, move us, and make us act in certain ways. More specifically, it addresses Trafalgar Square as a problem space, deconstructing the various spatial narratives leading into and within the square. In... Show moreAbstract: (Key Terms: Collective Framework, Rhetorical Theory, Trafalgar Square, Spatial Narratives) This thesis is a rhetorical examination of language as elicited in spatial narratives. In doing so, it examines the various symbols that public spaces employ in order to rhetorically speak to us, move us, and make us act in certain ways. More specifically, it addresses Trafalgar Square as a problem space, deconstructing the various spatial narratives leading into and within the square. In deconstructing these narratives, it attempts to find implicit meaning in what is explicitly inscribed into the land, and to examine this meaning alongside the social narrative that its occupants hold. This constructed narrative is explored through three frameworks: that of the physical framework of the square, those spatially enacted frameworks leading into it, and the larger collective framework of the city to which the square contributes. It finds that the frameworks of public space generally work toward establishing and authorizing a unifying ideological connection between the present society and societies of the past. However, these narratives are dependent on individual agents participating in the space's various frameworks; the meaning of a space is obfuscated by a society's current participant's usage of the space. In addition to this obfuscation, it discovers that the past role of a space can obfuscate the present meaning and role of the space in the overall framework, and that the present meaning can in turn obfuscate how individuals relate to and interpret the past. Show less

Date Issued

2014

Identifier

FSU_migr_uhm-0294

Format

Thesis

Title

"Vicksburg's Troubles": Black Participation in the Body Politic and Land Ownership in the Age of Redeemer Violence.

This dissertation looks at the 1874 "Vicksburg (Mississippi) Massacre" and its direct causes. Black sharecroppers, during the Reconstruction era, have been the focus of considerable scholarship that looks at black life in relation to white landowners. Little attention, however, has been given to black landowners. An examination of the House of Representatives Reports, Land Deeds, Census Records, Tax Records, and the American Missionary Association Archival Records allow a critical examination... Show moreThis dissertation looks at the 1874 "Vicksburg (Mississippi) Massacre" and its direct causes. Black sharecroppers, during the Reconstruction era, have been the focus of considerable scholarship that looks at black life in relation to white landowners. Little attention, however, has been given to black landowners. An examination of the House of Representatives Reports, Land Deeds, Census Records, Tax Records, and the American Missionary Association Archival Records allow a critical examination of the agency that black landowners in Vicksburg garnered before the Massacre. This dissertation focuses on the direct causes behind the massacre, including local black politicians and civic leaders, and a growing number of black landowners. More importantly, the acquisition of land by black Mississippians prompted the most prosperous white land owners to take action against them. Most threatening to Vicksburg's white population was the fact that Vicksburg had a black sheriff who also served as county tax collector. As Vicksburg's black leaders began to spend tax money on black education, whites became infuriated. This micro history of Vicksburg during the Reconstruction era demonstrates that life for these folk must have been hard but many of them found ways to form communities independent from white landowners. Show less

Date Issued

2012

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-6911

Format

Thesis

Title

‘Our Bonaparte?’: Republicanism, Religion, and Paranoia in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, 1789-1830.

"‘Our Bonaparte’: Republicanism, Religion, and Paranoia in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, 1789-1830," examines how American politicians used the idea of Napoleon Bonaparte to reflect (or distort) contemporary political issues in the New England and Mid-Atlantic areas of the United States. It shows how Napoleon became a standard piece of political imagery to either support or attack specific political beliefs and opinions during the first three decades of the nineteenth century, depending... Show more"‘Our Bonaparte’: Republicanism, Religion, and Paranoia in New England and the Mid-Atlantic, 1789-1830," examines how American politicians used the idea of Napoleon Bonaparte to reflect (or distort) contemporary political issues in the New England and Mid-Atlantic areas of the United States. It shows how Napoleon became a standard piece of political imagery to either support or attack specific political beliefs and opinions during the first three decades of the nineteenth century, depending on which political faction was discussing Bonaparte at the time. Show less

Date Issued

2016

Identifier

FSU_FA2016_Luke_fsu_0071E_13559

Format

Thesis

Title

18th Century Transformations of the Jamaican Plantocracy: Edward Long and Bryan Edwards.

Focusing on the mid- to-late eighteenth century the purpose of this thesis is to examine the ways in which white slaveholders in Jamaica developed a unique West Indian ideology grounded in the institution of slavery and the survival of the white plantocracy. Whites were a minority in Jamaican slave society, slaveholding was widespread amongst white settlers, and all white men experienced privileges in a society organized around racialized boundaries of rule. These factors helped to ensure... Show moreFocusing on the mid- to-late eighteenth century the purpose of this thesis is to examine the ways in which white slaveholders in Jamaica developed a unique West Indian ideology grounded in the institution of slavery and the survival of the white plantocracy. Whites were a minority in Jamaican slave society, slaveholding was widespread amongst white settlers, and all white men experienced privileges in a society organized around racialized boundaries of rule. These factors helped to ensure that Jamaican colonists developed a distinctively local, or Creole, worldview characterized by the defense of slavery and a culture of white male solidarity. However, metropolitan culture influenced their ideology, and Jamaican slaveholders saw themselves as loyal subjects of the British Crown. They were therefore colonial creoles and, in spite of the rise of abolitionism in the metropole, they maintained that their local practices were reconcilable with their status as transplanted Britons. This thesis centers itself within the debates and the ideological shifts that centered on the moral, political, and economic discussions of British Caribbean slavery during the second half of the 18th century. More specifically, I focus on the historical works of two West Indian contemporaries during the late eighteenth century: Edward Long and Bryan Edwards. Between them, they defined a period of social and cultural transition within the late eighteenth century Jamaican plantocracy. The purpose of this analysis is to explain the competing racial ideologies of the enlightenment that manifested themselves within the writings of Long and Edwards. Their works explain how these racial ideologies combined with and reinforced plantation profitability. Their positions on slavery and colonialism reflected a conflict of philosophy and reality, not only concerning the Jamaican plantocracy, but also the British West Indies as a whole. Most significant, however, is how the changing attitudes and beliefs found within these contemporary texts successfully indicated the impact of social and economic change upon the plantocracy. Show less

This study examines clergy in colonial New England and how they depicted dead bodies in their funeral sermons. Whether it was second generation Puritan ministers like William Hubbard and Samuel Willard, or third generation ministers like Benjamin Colman and Benjamin Wadsworth, ministers imagined their resting subjects as a "pillar," "shield," "withering grass," or "vapor." I argue their language of the body, such as the use of specific terms within certain contexts, reflected social and... Show moreThis study examines clergy in colonial New England and how they depicted dead bodies in their funeral sermons. Whether it was second generation Puritan ministers like William Hubbard and Samuel Willard, or third generation ministers like Benjamin Colman and Benjamin Wadsworth, ministers imagined their resting subjects as a "pillar," "shield," "withering grass," or "vapor." I argue their language of the body, such as the use of specific terms within certain contexts, reflected social and religious trends in New England, from its Puritan origins to its welcoming of moderate Christianity in the eighteenth-century. Chapter Two observes Puritan funeral sermons and their relation to King Philip's War and second generation perception of natural depravity. Chapter Three discusses funeral sermons and their reflection of the third generation's shift toward English intellectualism and religious optimism. In conclusion, I argue funeral sermons and their generational developments spoke to more than specific superlatives of the dead. With the body of the dead as their canvas, New England ministers illustrated prevailing mentalities about religious and cultural thought. They spoke to how authority was mediated and to what extent human nature could be trusted. New England clergy entered into public discourse about the inherent abilities, or disabilities, their congregations were defined by. Through their imaginative definitions of dead bodies, they ventured to define survivors and their place in the Church. Show less

From 1935 to 1945, the Chicago pharmaceutical corporation Abbott Laboratories, the military's primary medical supplier during the Second World War, commissioned dozens of artists in a unique contractual agreement to produce hundreds of paintings and drawings creating advertisements and illustrations for both its medical journal What's New and for the United States Government's War Department. The contract specifically barred direct company profit from the imagery or advertisements created by... Show moreFrom 1935 to 1945, the Chicago pharmaceutical corporation Abbott Laboratories, the military's primary medical supplier during the Second World War, commissioned dozens of artists in a unique contractual agreement to produce hundreds of paintings and drawings creating advertisements and illustrations for both its medical journal What's New and for the United States Government's War Department. The contract specifically barred direct company profit from the imagery or advertisements created by commissioned artists yet simultaneously demonstrated Abbott's goodwill and "altruism" by donating the proceeds from public art exhibitions and the sales of color reproductions directly to the government's Treasury Department. Artists participating in the combat arts program received payment, travel expenses, and commissions as full-fledged active-duty military officers in exchange for works over a breadth of war subjects. Despite Abbott Laboratories' large expenditure for these projects, it fulfilled its contractual obligation to turn over all of the commissioned paintings and drawings to the federal government's War Department in June 1945. The terms and conditions of this contract, the tri-partite corporation-patron-artist relationship, the works created through Abbott Laboratories' various art initiatives, and the mass reproduction and mobilization of these images for popular culture constitute the focus of this dissertation. Abbott skillfully designed a system of corporate patronage that masked both its intentions and its benefits to result in artistically rich and commercially viable propaganda. In order to understand Abbott's wartime patronage, one must consider the company's need to rehabilitate its corporate image and its consequent negotiation of the projection of that image, its patronage within the context of 1940s corporate sponsorship and the broader context of wartime patronage, the circumstances surrounding the commission and creation of the individual words within its collection and the circumstances leading to the exhibition, distribution, and final ownership of the artwork. Finally, understanding Abbott's patronage is critical to providing insight into the 1940s American artist's mediation of art and advertising. Show less

Date Issued

2013

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-7736

Format

Thesis

Title

"The Ablest Man in the British Army": The Life and Career of General Sir John Hope.

In 1793 Napoléon Bonaparte won his first victory at Toulon, France. In 1805 the Grande Armée marched from the English Channel to the Austrian capital and ultimately defeated a combined Austrian and Russian Army at Austerlitz. Napoléon's corps had no rivals in Europe. For over twenty years France dominated every aspect of civilization in Europe. However, less than ten years after Austerlitz, Napoléon suffered his last defeat at Waterloo and was exiled from Europe forever. Throughout this... Show moreIn 1793 Napoléon Bonaparte won his first victory at Toulon, France. In 1805 the Grande Armée marched from the English Channel to the Austrian capital and ultimately defeated a combined Austrian and Russian Army at Austerlitz. Napoléon's corps had no rivals in Europe. For over twenty years France dominated every aspect of civilization in Europe. However, less than ten years after Austerlitz, Napoléon suffered his last defeat at Waterloo and was exiled from Europe forever. Throughout this entire period only England remained unconquered and defiant of the Emperor's desires. Historians credit the Royal Navy and England's commercial wealth as the primary reasons why Napoléon was never able to destroy his nemesis. However, in the end, it was not the Navy or England's money that defeated the French; it was the British army. An army led by men like General Sir John Hope. Hope entered military service in 1784 and first fought the armies of France in the West Indies during the mid-1790s. While he was in the West Indies, Hope began his long association with Generals Ralph Abercromby and John Moore who mentored him and furthered his military career. In 1799, Hope was appointed Adjutant General under Abercromby and participated in the Helder Campaign. Although wounded early in the campaign, Hope was later instrumental in the drafting of the Treaty of Alkmaar which ended the campaign. A year later, Hope once again sailed with Abercromby across the Mediterranean and took part in the British Egyptian Campaign in 1801. During the campaign, Hope distinguished himself in battle and negotiated the surrender of the French forces occupying Cairo and Alexandria. Six years later in 1808, Hope was appointed second in command under Moore during the British army's expedition to Sweden. After several months of waiting for permission to disembark in Sweden, the expedition was cancelled and Hope was diverted to Portugal. After the British victory at Vimeiro in August 1808, Hope arrived in Lisbon and was responsible for the embarkation of the French army under the provisions of the Convention of Cintra. Hope also assisted in the reestablishment of the Portuguese Regency. When the English government decided to assist the Spanish in their fight against the French, Hope was appointed as a division commander under Moore. Once British attempts failed to halt French advances in Spain, Hope joined in the disastrous retreat to La Coruña. Following the battle of La Coruña, Hope took charge of the British evacuation of Spain after Moore had been fatally wounded. Upon his return to England in 1809, Hope was assigned as commander of the reserve for the Walcheren Expedition. Despite Hope's reservations about the overall chances of success of the expedition, Hope's men performed admirably in their assignments. However, the expedition failed to achieve its objectives and was forced to retreat after the French successfully reinforced the Scheldt Estuary and disease reduced the ranks of the British army. In 1812, Hope was appointed Commander in Chief of British forces in Ireland. During his short tenure in Ireland, Hope restored the discipline of the army, quelled local disturbances, and was instrumental in the development of the Irish militia and police force. Ongoing campaigns on the Peninsula required Hope's presence in October 1813, resulting in his transfer to Spain. Upon arrival, Hope was given command of the left wing of the Allied army under the Duke of Wellington. After successfully crossing the Bidassoa River into Southern France, Hope led the pursuit of the French army along the coast to the Nivelle River and eventually to the outskirts of Bayonne. Subsequent to the defeat of the French counterattacks in December 1813, Hope was given the responsibility of investing Bayonne. After successfully crossing the Adour River in February 1814, Hope's army besieged Bayonne until its capitulation on 28 April 1814. Wounded during the siege of Bayonne, Hope never again commanded troops in the field. He returned to Scotland and his wife of eleven years. While Hope was away on campaign, it was Louisa who gave him strength, and when he returned, he was able to repay her with his affection. In 1817, Hope became the 4th Earl of Hopetoun and moved his family to Hopetoun House in Linlithgowshire, Scotland. Two years later he was promoted to full general and in 1822 he was honored to host the King of England in his home. Unfortunately, after surviving campaigns in the West Indies, Egypt, the Netherlands, and on the Peninsula, Hope's health failed in Paris, France where he died at the age of fifty-eight. General Hope's generalship and accomplishments contributed immensely to the overall success of the British army against Napoléon and warrant further review. Thousands of books have been written about the England's war with France during the Napoléonic Era; however, very few of these books highlight the life and career of General Sir John Hope. The goal of this dissertation is to do just that – review the life and military career of John Hope through an objective and scholarly analysis of his and his soldier's actions based on original correspondence and manuscripts. Show less

In 1984 George Rodrigue, then known primarily as a naïve surrealist or Cajun primitive expressionist, was asked to paint illustrations for a collection of Louisiana ghost stories entitled Bayou. When the moment came to illustrate the French-Cajun tale of the werewolf, or loup-garoup, the artist used his previously deceased black and white spaniel-terrier mix, Tiffany, as a model. Bathed in the light of a Cajun moon, the creature took on a blue hue. Since then, Blue Dog, as the animal has... Show moreIn 1984 George Rodrigue, then known primarily as a naïve surrealist or Cajun primitive expressionist, was asked to paint illustrations for a collection of Louisiana ghost stories entitled Bayou. When the moment came to illustrate the French-Cajun tale of the werewolf, or loup-garoup, the artist used his previously deceased black and white spaniel-terrier mix, Tiffany, as a model. Bathed in the light of a Cajun moon, the creature took on a blue hue. Since then, Blue Dog, as the animal has become known, has generated wide recognition with original canvases and silk screens portraying this subject selling for as high as $350,000. George Rodrigue's artistic background is rooted in commercial design. From his earliest recollections he has maintained an interest in the ability of art images to impart specific feelings and emotions and exercise influential power over those who view them. In search of a niche market and subject matter with which to showcase his artistic talents, Rodrigue turned to painting images from his Acadian heritage. Efforts within this context earned Rodrigue domestic and international acclaim. His works sold relatively well within selected circles –offered initially at prices of $50 and eventually, through enhanced product placement and networking efforts, reaching values of $150,000. However, as Rodrigue's artistic focus shifted away from his Acadian past and began to focus intently upon Blue Dog, an icon more closely aligned with his immediate, commercially influenced present, what positive critical interest Rodrigue had been able to foster in his work began to subside. Conversely, putting to work theories concerning the power of public interest to diminish considerably the effectiveness of scant or negative critical commentary, Blue Dog's popularity grew exponentially. This icon ushered Rodrigue into a phase of his career that, with its ability to foster instant audience report and spur mass-market appeal, reflects a heretofore-unrealized synergy between his artistic and commercial sensibilities. Today, George Rodrigue stands as an example of artistic success achieved outside the traditional artist/dealer/gallery establishment and propagated not through the centralized voices of select critics, but via the consensus opinions and economic power of a mainstream, art-purchasing audience. Using lessons learned through relationships with agents, dealers, fellow artists, friends, and established marketing and promotional professionals, Rodrigue has generated for himself a version of the business model used historically by the art industry and infused it with his own approachable, genial persona. Without question, Blue Dog has provided Rodrigue a level of artistic freedom and financial success that was for him previously unattainable. Through the mass public appeal of the canine icon, Rodrigue's earning potential as an artist presently dwarfs that which he achieved with his early Acadian-influenced efforts. Averaging an annual income of $10 million, it is clear that whether gleaned from the world of art or the world of business, the mantra of "success breeds success" remains true and verifiable. Show less

Date Issued

2003

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-2087

Format

Thesis

Title

Advancing American Art and Its Afterlife: from the State Department to the University Museum.

The chief objective of this study is to examine the post-1948 life of forty-six paintings, originally a part of the United States Department of State's Advancing American Art collection. When given a second life after the collection's aborted international tour and subsequent auction, these paintings helped shape the university/museum collections and identities of four regional academic institutions: Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama; the University of Georgia, Athens; the University of... Show moreThe chief objective of this study is to examine the post-1948 life of forty-six paintings, originally a part of the United States Department of State's Advancing American Art collection. When given a second life after the collection's aborted international tour and subsequent auction, these paintings helped shape the university/museum collections and identities of four regional academic institutions: Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama; the University of Georgia, Athens; the University of Oklahoma, Norman; and the University of Washington, Seattle. No one has yet treated the domestic aftermath of the Advancing American Art exhibition and the fate of the State Department's collection. Yet the acquisition of paintings from Advancing American Art by colleges and universities formed the nuclei of their collections of American art. In the process, the acquired works vivified the study of American contemporary art in the 1940s and 1950s, helped develop the modernist canon in the United States, advanced the careers of American artists associated with the exhibition, and contributed to the development of prominent regional cultural facilities, and by extension the universities' respective identities. In addition, an analysis of the post-exhibition lives of these paintings amplifies the socio-political context of the exhibition beyond what has been written. Traditional study of American art has focused on the artists and stylistic movements emerging from major metropolitan areas, particularly in the northeastern U.S., thus marginalizing other sections of the country. Little has been written about the role played by regional fine art collections and the museums that house them in defining the nation's art history. The Advancing American Art exhibition offers an important opportunity to study that role. Instead of making the controversial paintings disappear into the depths of storage vaults, universities displayed them as important examples of avant-garde American art. Furthermore, the dissemination of the paintings to the South, Midwest, and Northwest broadened the audience for vanguard art domestically. Thus, this study of regional collections, using the wealth of virtually untapped archival resources available, aids understanding of the reception of contemporary art outside larger metropolitan areas. A rigorous reconsideration of the subject demonstrates that the dispersal of paintings to four forward-thinking regional public academic institutions contributes to our more nuanced understanding of the regional reception of modernist art. More important, a study of the unanticipated consequences of the cancellation of the touring exhibition also provides insight into the institutional histories of regional American museums. Regional universities had a critical need for original paintings, as they developed new curricula in contemporary visual arts to accommodate increased student enrollment due to returning military personnel from World War II. Thus, the dispersal of the collection contributed to the growth of academic programs, the stimulation of interest in current American art, and the development of the prominent fine art museums now located on these campuses. Based in part upon previously untapped archival resources, this study considers for the first time these four institutional recipients of paintings from the Advancing American Art collection and paves the way for future scholarship on the exhibition's regional impact. Show less

Date Issued

2010

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-2759

Format

Thesis

Title

Advice and Discontent: Staging Identity through Legal Representation on the British Stage, 1660-1800.

One of the key issues that arises when discussing the long eighteenth century is that of identity: self/individual, and group/national. Whereas recent critical work in both literary studies and historiography has concerned itself with the circumstances surrounding the long eighteenth century's fundamental shifts in conceptions of identity, much of this work overlooks the potential for identity to be relational, rather than either exterior or interior to an individual/group. This dissertation... Show moreOne of the key issues that arises when discussing the long eighteenth century is that of identity: self/individual, and group/national. Whereas recent critical work in both literary studies and historiography has concerned itself with the circumstances surrounding the long eighteenth century's fundamental shifts in conceptions of identity, much of this work overlooks the potential for identity to be relational, rather than either exterior or interior to an individual/group. This dissertation explores the relational nature of identity formation in the long eighteenth century by examining a literary genre and a character that depend upon relational interactions in order to sustain themselves: stage comedies and lawyers. Representative dramatic comedies by writers such as George Farquhar, Richard Cumberland, Thomas Lewis O'Beirne, William Wycherly, Christopher Bullock, Henry Fielding, John O'Keeffe, Colley Cibber, George Colman and David Garrick, and Samuel Foote, offer opportunities to study staged representations of lawyers whose clients' issues essentially become those of identity formation. This dissertation argues that, for many characters struggling to establish an identity that can participate in a national British identity, the key to such participation lies in access to real property; when access to real property is denied them, they must turn to someone who is himself struggling to establish an identity. At this point, lawyers in eighteenth-century British comedies become much more than stock characters or mere comic relief. Instead, the lawyer—often ostracized and derided himself—becomes a mediator not just of individual identity, but of "Britishness." Careful attention to lawyers' success representing different types of clients struggling to establish identities through access to real property highlights both the power of relational identity formation and the key roles that arguably minor characters have in arbitrating issues of national significance. Show less

Date Issued

2017

Identifier

FSU_2017SP_Cerniglia_fsu_0071E_13700

Format

Thesis

Title

The Aftermath of Sorrow: White Women's Search for Their Lost Cause, 1861 1917.

Scholars have not explored in depth the subject of women's grief as a result of their losses in the Civil War. The loss experienced by southern white women of their husbands and sons was compounded by their sense that they had also lost a culture based upon white male protection of white female virtue. If their soldiers were dead and their cause was dead, then they had reason also to mourn their loss of a privileged social status that held them sacred by virtue of their gender and race. These... Show moreScholars have not explored in depth the subject of women's grief as a result of their losses in the Civil War. The loss experienced by southern white women of their husbands and sons was compounded by their sense that they had also lost a culture based upon white male protection of white female virtue. If their soldiers were dead and their cause was dead, then they had reason also to mourn their loss of a privileged social status that held them sacred by virtue of their gender and race. These women were at once responsible for administering the rituals of grief and mourning as well as transmitting cultural values to children in the home. Beset by anger and bitterness at the loss of their families, their homes, their incomes, and, significantly, the white male protection they had been assured they required—yet circumscribed by the societal boundaries of women's proper activity—white women after the Civil War sought to rebuild their lives and their social fabric. Women participated in memorialization groups and organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy. But perhaps more significantly, the trauma of the war's aftermath of these women expressed itself in new cultural rituals and in fanning the embers of race hatred in the home and in the culture at large. This dissertation seeks to move beyond describing women's memorialization activities and analyzing violent male culture of the New South to focus instead on the activities of women to reestablish their privileged status in the aftermath of war and the end of slavery. The performed culture of grief and mourning had a specific meaning for women in the post-Civil War South. White southern women had to translate the defeat of their husbands and their institutions into "cultural victory." The theme of death and rebirth is the connecting matter between the Old South and New. Women in the New South had to reconstruct their habits, customs, and behaviors in the face of a world that had suddenly rejected their cultural foundations utterly. Because of this rejection and the trauma of war, women engaged in a campaign of vindication for their social position and their Lost Cause that was both highly visible and, at the same time, intensely private. The campaign was waged in the activism of memorial clubs, but also in the solitude of homes across the South where women kept written records of their grief. Women who did not have the relative affluence to head voluntary associations could keep a journal or scrapbook. Those who did not have journals or scrapbooks wrote letters expressing sentiments similar to those found in the most diligently kept and ornamented keepsake diaries. Most southern white women were participants in the culture of racial hierarchy that exalted all whites, and relied on white men's protection of white women. The entire nation had suffered an unparalleled shock, but grief from war had a specific effect in the South that it did not have in the North. The patterns of violence and fear in the post Civil War South were a result of their unique experience of military, economic, and cultural defeat. Women used writing as a catharsis and as a place to keep their pain undiminished over generations. Many women wrote in their diaries that they specifically intended to convey to the coming generations their feelings of bitterness unhealed by time. They were afraid that if women failed in the task of training children about the rightness of the Lost Cause, that southern culture, and white supremacy, might disappear. A few affluent club women made careers from cultivating the Lost Cause ideology. Katie Behan, wife of New Orleans mayor and head of the local White Citizens' League, and Rebecca Latimer Felton, columnist and wife of a Democratic Untied States Senator from Georgia, embraced the racial views of their husbands, but they also worked zealously in behalf of white supremacy themselves. Kate Behan was the president of the Confederated Southern Memorial Association and was a brilliant fundraiser for the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Felton was an outspoken suffrage supporter and was appointed as the first woman United States Senator upon her husband's death, although she served for only one day. These women were certainly exceptional, but they exerted cultural hegemony. They directly influenced groups of club women and those who heard them spoke or who read their public writing. They also indirectly supported women across the economic spectrum who were engaging in the very political activity of training children in homes across the South to support the Lost Cause and racial hierarchy. For Southern white women, this cultural power was tied up in the origins of the "Lost Cause Myth" that stemmed from the shock and loss of white social and economic dominance during and after the Civil War. Southern women actively engaged in supporting a system of racial violence and hate by keeping alive the trauma of war in the violent and vindictive post-war period by teaching these values to children. Show less

Date Issued

2007

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-1925

Format

Thesis

Title

Agency, Gender, and the Law in Slave Narratives.

Creator

Thomas, Alexandra, Department of History

Abstract/Description

This thesis examines the presence of legal institutions in the accounts of enslaved and apprenticed people who resided in the British colonies of Jamaica, Antigua and Mauritius. Focusing on the lives of three individuals, Mary Prince, James Williams, and Marie Saladin, this thesis integrates enslaved persons' presence in and interaction with legal institutions into the wider scope of what it meant to be enslaved during the nineteenth century on a British colony. To do so, the thesis observes... Show moreThis thesis examines the presence of legal institutions in the accounts of enslaved and apprenticed people who resided in the British colonies of Jamaica, Antigua and Mauritius. Focusing on the lives of three individuals, Mary Prince, James Williams, and Marie Saladin, this thesis integrates enslaved persons' presence in and interaction with legal institutions into the wider scope of what it meant to be enslaved during the nineteenth century on a British colony. To do so, the thesis observes the common elements discussed and represented in accounts of enslaved people and analyses the concept of a slave narrative. Show less

Date Issued

2014

Identifier

FSU_migr_uhm-0400

Format

Thesis

Title

Aggressive Philanthropy: Progressivism, Conservatism, and the William Volker Charities Fund.

Creator

McVicar, Michael J.

Abstract/Description

This essay explores the history of the William Volker Charities Fund, a significant charitable organization founded in 1932 by William Volker, a Kansas City furniture manufacturer. A self-describe progressive, Volker was a prominent Kansas Citian who earned the nickname Mr. Anonymous because he ssecretly gave away most of his personal fortune to create the city's private/public welfare system in the first half of the twentieth century. After Volker's death, Harold W. Luhnow, Volker's nephew,... Show moreThis essay explores the history of the William Volker Charities Fund, a significant charitable organization founded in 1932 by William Volker, a Kansas City furniture manufacturer. A self-describe progressive, Volker was a prominent Kansas Citian who earned the nickname Mr. Anonymous because he ssecretly gave away most of his personal fortune to create the city's private/public welfare system in the first half of the twentieth century. After Volker's death, Harold W. Luhnow, Volker's nephew, used the fund's resources to move from progressive concerns related to social welfare to support free market, libertarian, and conservative intellectuals after World War II. Before collapsing in the late 1960s, the fund financed the early careers of five Nobel Prize winners; prominent figures in what would become the Religious Right; controversial revisionist historians; and, numerous conservative writers, publishers, and public figures. Show less

Date Issued

2011

Identifier

FSU_migr_rel_faculty_publications-0007

Format

Citation

Title

The Agrarian Policy of the Social Revolutionary Party and Its Impact on the Development of the Russian Peasantry into a Politicized Social Class, 1870-1907.

In the Russian Empire, where so many of its inhabitants were of the peasant class in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is interesting that despite their large numbers, they did not engage themselves regularly in political matters. While some parties attempted to include the peasantry in the years 1902-1907, many were unable to effectively incorporate the peasants within the organizational structure of the party. Peasants, despite their discontent with their circumstances, were unwilling to join... Show moreIn the Russian Empire, where so many of its inhabitants were of the peasant class in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is interesting that despite their large numbers, they did not engage themselves regularly in political matters. While some parties attempted to include the peasantry in the years 1902-1907, many were unable to effectively incorporate the peasants within the organizational structure of the party. Peasants, despite their discontent with their circumstances, were unwilling to join organized political parties in the revolutionary movement that was present in Russia during these years. Instead, the peasants demonstrated their ability to become a contender in the realm of politics apart from the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR), the one most active among the countryside. There is evidence that both the PSR and the peasants were striving to change the social and political scene in Russia. Although the PSR hoped that the peasants would unite in its efforts to bring forth a revolution to Russia, the peasants acted alone, seeking different concessions from the government. In the end, the peasants are often remembered for their uprisings and revolts directed at their landlords, but it is because of these actions that many parties, and the government, began to rethink the agrarian question. By 1902, the peasants were a political force, regardless of the ultimate outcome of their actions. Show less

Date Issued

2009

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-7159

Format

Thesis

Title

Alberto Aringhieri and the Chapel of Saint John the Baptist: Patronage, Politics, and the Cult of Relics in Renaissance Siena.

The reliquary chapel of Saint John the Baptist in Siena Cathedral, built between 1482 and 1504, provides valuable insight into an important cultural and historical moment in late fifteenth century Italy. This dissertation explicates the meaning of the chapel and its multi-media decoration on three levels: the viewpoint of the patron, Alberto Aringhieri; the significance for the city of Siena; and in response to the knightly Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. For Aringhieri, the chapel... Show moreThe reliquary chapel of Saint John the Baptist in Siena Cathedral, built between 1482 and 1504, provides valuable insight into an important cultural and historical moment in late fifteenth century Italy. This dissertation explicates the meaning of the chapel and its multi-media decoration on three levels: the viewpoint of the patron, Alberto Aringhieri; the significance for the city of Siena; and in response to the knightly Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. For Aringhieri, the chapel continued a tradition of commemoration on the part of his family. The portraits painted by Pinturicchio depict Aringhieri and his son Luzio underscore the dynastic content of the monument while stressing the membership of these figures among the noble ranks of the Knights of Rhodes. The chapel's civic significance is revealed by reference to the ancient Roman and early Christian heritage of Siena. The all' antica façade is related to the codification of the Siena's Roman past by local humanists, and the presence of Saint Ansanus, baptizer of the Sienese, in the interior makes clear the city's venerable place in the history of Christianity. Another level of civic meaning in terms of Siena's politically-turbulent relationship with Florence is suggested by the importance of Donatello's bronze statue of the Baptist, which could have been read both as a confirmation of Sienese supremacy over their traditional rivals and as supportive of the Florentine government. Alberto and Luzio Aringhieri's membership in the Order of Saint John (Knights Hospitaller of Rhodes) is directly relevant to the decoration and function of the chapel. The Knights' devotion to John the Baptist and their interest in relics of this saint are vital for understanding the chapel's meaning for its patron and other local members of the Order. The traditional role of the Hospitallers as protectors of sacred relics and is continued by the painted Aringhieri Knights that flank the chapel entrance on the interior. The enduring importance of the chapel was underscored in the mid-seventeenth century by Pope Alexander VII who used the monument, which he refurbished, as a model for his new Cappella del Voto located in a pendant position across the transept. The pope's interests in the chapel reflect the same familial, civic, and knightly issues important for the original patron, Alberto Aringhieri. Show less

Alexander Pushkin, the father of Modern Russian literature, has influenced every great contemporary Russian writer. His timeless poetry and insightful prose solidify him as a leading voice in Russian culture. During his lifetime, Pushkin dealt with racism and discrimination because his African great-grandfather, Abram Gannibal. In combating negative framing of his identity and his ancestry, Pushkin reveals a defense and reclamation of self seldom seen in contemporaries of his day. In... Show moreAlexander Pushkin, the father of Modern Russian literature, has influenced every great contemporary Russian writer. His timeless poetry and insightful prose solidify him as a leading voice in Russian culture. During his lifetime, Pushkin dealt with racism and discrimination because his African great-grandfather, Abram Gannibal. In combating negative framing of his identity and his ancestry, Pushkin reveals a defense and reclamation of self seldom seen in contemporaries of his day. In asserting ownership over his ancestry, he takes back his narrative and dignity. Through his literary works, Pushkin shows how he navigated his blackness in a world that sought to undermine it. Show less

Date Issued

2018

Identifier

2018_Sp_Pryor_fsu_0071N_14550

Format

Thesis

Title

Aliens in the World: Sectarians, Secularism and the Second Great Awakening.

The association of an otherworldly impulse with the Second Great Awakening and the study of sectarianism in the Jacksonian period have long been overlooked by scholars. Most have associated the awakening with evangelicals' social and moral reform efforts or with Christian political mobilization because their attention has been focused on settled or maturing religious groups. Without question the awakening inspired many Christians to establish reform societies whose purpose was to turn the... Show moreThe association of an otherworldly impulse with the Second Great Awakening and the study of sectarianism in the Jacksonian period have long been overlooked by scholars. Most have associated the awakening with evangelicals' social and moral reform efforts or with Christian political mobilization because their attention has been focused on settled or maturing religious groups. Without question the awakening inspired many Christians to establish reform societies whose purpose was to turn the United States into a Godly evangelical empire. However, the awakening also resulted in the creation of several new religious sects who rejected these efforts. The Disciples of Christ, or Churches of Christ, the Millerites, the Mormons and the Hicksite Quakers do not fit typical characterizations of the awakening. They tried in various ways to remain unblemished by the world rather than expending their energies trying to perfect it. As sectarians in their initial stage of religious development they focused more on rewards in the next life than on comfort and conquest in this one. An analysis of their views on politics, social reform and economics suggests that the Second Great Awakening inspired an otherworldly outlook among sectarians even while it nurtured a reform impulse among denominations. The fact that American Transcendentalists, who were engaged in a separate literary, intellectual and spiritual movement, had similar attitudes toward politics, social reform and economics further suggests that the otherworldly outlook was pervasive in Jacksonian America. Show less

Date Issued

2005

Identifier

FSU_migr_etd-2602

Format

Thesis

Title

Along freedom’s road: Ruth Willis Perry and the discourse of civil rights.

Creator

Cray, Adam F.

Date Issued

2005-07-26

Identifier

160602, FSDT160602, fsu:18990

Format

Document (PDF)

Title

The American Revolution Bicentennial in Florida State Authority, Grassroots Organizing, and the Creation of Memory and Patriotic Comemmoration.

The American Revolution Bicentennial in Florida: State Authority, Grassroots Organizing, and the Creation of Memory and Patriotic Commemoration examines the ways in which the national bicentennial was celebrated in Florida. Using a cultural historical approach, this thesis looks at how government officials, politicians, and private citizens constructed patriotic historical narratives during a time of heightened social and political divisiveness. Doing so illuminates the ways in which... Show moreThe American Revolution Bicentennial in Florida: State Authority, Grassroots Organizing, and the Creation of Memory and Patriotic Commemoration examines the ways in which the national bicentennial was celebrated in Florida. Using a cultural historical approach, this thesis looks at how government officials, politicians, and private citizens constructed patriotic historical narratives during a time of heightened social and political divisiveness. Doing so illuminates the ways in which Floridians adapted consensus narratives of history to contemporary political needs. Furthermore, this thesis examines the legacy of the national bicentennial on the practice of patriotic commemoration and remembrance in the United States today. The records of the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Florida serve as the chief source of material for this thesis. These records are housed at the State Archives of Florida in Tallahassee, and include institutional records, American Revolution Bicentennial Administration literature, newspaper articles, and tourism brochures. Each of these pieces are vitally important to analyzing the dialectic of commemoration between government officials and the public throughout the 1970s. Show less

Date Issued

2017

Identifier

FSU_2017SP_Belcher_fsu_0071N_13749

Format

Thesis

Title

An analysis of a selected list of books of historical fiction that have developmental values for the intermediate grades.

Creator

Allen, Margaret Louise, Gregory, Agnes, Florida State University

Abstract/Description

"It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to explore some of those books included in several literary selection tools in order to determine whether they present the needs of children and the satisfaction of those needs in terms of experiences showing developmental values of a social and ethical nature. To recognize that a certain youngster needs more self-confidence, to give him a book in which the hero is beset by the same situation and overcomes it, and then to sit back with the calm... Show more"It is the purpose of this paper, therefore, to explore some of those books included in several literary selection tools in order to determine whether they present the needs of children and the satisfaction of those needs in terms of experiences showing developmental values of a social and ethical nature. To recognize that a certain youngster needs more self-confidence, to give him a book in which the hero is beset by the same situation and overcomes it, and then to sit back with the calm expectation of seeing a miracle wrought would be optimistic to the point of simple-mindedness. All that the librarian can do is to present the book to the child in the hope that he will absorb some help from his reading and thus be encouraged to solve his problems successfully"--Introduction. Show less

Date Issued

1958

Identifier

FSU_historic_akd9730

Format

Thesis

Title

Angels or Monsters?: Violent Crimes and Violent Children in Mexico City, 1927-1932.

Based upon archival sources located in Mexico, this thesis represents a focused attempt at analyzing the factors affecting the punishment of juvenile offenders in late 1920s and early 1930s Mexico City. I argue that different crimes, homicide, prostitution, and rape, merited punishments that were prescribed to uniquely fit a suspect based on elite views of what represented the model family, education, and sexual behavior. The elite views were represented by state officials in the Tribunal... Show moreBased upon archival sources located in Mexico, this thesis represents a focused attempt at analyzing the factors affecting the punishment of juvenile offenders in late 1920s and early 1930s Mexico City. I argue that different crimes, homicide, prostitution, and rape, merited punishments that were prescribed to uniquely fit a suspect based on elite views of what represented the model family, education, and sexual behavior. The elite views were represented by state officials in the Tribunal para Menores, a court established in January 1927, to specifically deal with minors, legally defined as anyone under the age of 18. Prior to the establishment of the Tribunal para Menores, minors were adjudicated in adult courts and placed in adult correctional facilities. However, the Tribunal represented the first attempt in Mexico City to separate child from adult. Correctional schools were established that solely housed minors and in most cases, prison sentences alongside adults were no longer acceptable. Instead, minors were placed in correctional schools where the ultimate goal was rehabilitation so minors could re-enter society as productive members of the nation. Show less

Cement skyscrapers, the smell of automobile exhaust, turned down faces of strangers. New York City during the Great Depression was at odds with the founding fathers' vision of America as a shining City Upon a Hill. Anna Sokolow's feelings about the modern urban landscape, the deadening isolation that often accompanies it, and its forsaken twentieth century anti-hero inspired her to create her celebrated and influential 1955 piece, Rooms. In this dance, Sokolow explores the uncanny loneliness... Show moreCement skyscrapers, the smell of automobile exhaust, turned down faces of strangers. New York City during the Great Depression was at odds with the founding fathers' vision of America as a shining City Upon a Hill. Anna Sokolow's feelings about the modern urban landscape, the deadening isolation that often accompanies it, and its forsaken twentieth century anti-hero inspired her to create her celebrated and influential 1955 piece, Rooms. In this dance, Sokolow explores the uncanny loneliness that can affect those living in close quarters to others, specifically in busy, gritty, urban post-war America. During the first half of the twentieth century dancemakers and artists alike were creating a growing body of work that we can now refer to as Americana. These were works that self-consciously drew upon a wide range of American themes and stereotypes. While the politics and aesthetics of Americana are diverse, including work based on such themes as the American Frontier, and African American heritage, this thesis explores Rooms as a case study of a sub-genre I refer to as Dystopic Americana. This thesis represents the use of the Labanotation score of Rooms and historical research. I begin with introductory and contextual information about the study in general and Rooms specifically, followed by a general definition of Americana. I then explore three broad types of Americana: Mythic America, the African American Experience, and Dystopic America. Sokolow's Rooms is a work of Dystopic Americana. I then go on to explain three major themes characteristic of Dystopic Americana and present in Rooms: the modern, urban landscape, isolation and loneliness, and the anti-hero. From these investigations I draw conclusions about the experience of embodied research and argue for the synthesis of history and dance reconstruction as a model of best practices in the field. Show less

Anni Albers (1899-1994), weaver, printmaker, and writer, began her studies at the Bauhaus in 1922, and she soon became a leading figure in the weaving workshop there. Leaving Germany in 1933 when the Bauhaus closed under the pressure of Nazi power, Albers permanently moved to America and began teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Here, she headed her own weaving workshop, which was based on Bauhaus pedagogy. In 1935 she visited Mexico for the first of twelve times; she... Show moreAnni Albers (1899-1994), weaver, printmaker, and writer, began her studies at the Bauhaus in 1922, and she soon became a leading figure in the weaving workshop there. Leaving Germany in 1933 when the Bauhaus closed under the pressure of Nazi power, Albers permanently moved to America and began teaching at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Here, she headed her own weaving workshop, which was based on Bauhaus pedagogy. In 1935 she visited Mexico for the first of twelve times; she visited Peru and Chile in 1953. With each trip to Latin America, she developed an increased interest in the weavings of the ancient Americas. From the mid-1930s to the early 1960s, she allowed aspects of ancient textiles to figure into her own weavings, and she described her admiration for ancient weaving cultures in her numerous writings. Looking at the environments in which Albers worked, I situate her weavings and writings in the intellectual atmospheres of the Bauhaus, Black Mountain College, and her independent studies and travels in the Americas. Doing so reveals the complexity of her personal philosophy on art, which ultimately derived from the Bauhaus, and united art, craft, and design though universalism. Her weavings and writings from 1924 to 1966 reflect this art philosophy. Looking at the formal aspects of her wall hangings and analyzing her writings, I outline the extent of Albers's understanding of the theories proposed by intellectuals sharing her milieu, in particular Wilhelm Worringer (1881-1965). I show Albers borrowed aspects of his theories; however, I do not claim that she strictly adhered to Worringer's ideas. Instead, she deviates from them to emphasize characteristics unique to her medium of weaving and its history based in craft technique. This thesis begins by establishing Albers's understanding of geometric abstraction through the Bauhaus. I investigate claims that she was indebted to Worringer's Abstraction and Empathy: A Contribution to the Psychology of Style (1908), which she and others likely read at the Bauhaus. Worringer's argument put forward a way to link ancient and modern art through a shared psychic state, characterized by feelings of chaos and the need for order, which he believed was manifested as geometric designs. My study shows that Worringer offered Albers one way to relate the textiles of the ancient past to her modern weavings, but that she also found other connections after her move to the United States. After 1933 she became increasingly devoted to the textiles of ancient America. This is confirmed by her use of Peruvian textile constructions, her collection of ancient American textiles, and her discussions of these weaving cultures in her writings. Additionally, Albers encountered other artists working in North and South America who likewise sought to apply abstractions from ancient American art to modernism. I compare works by Joaquín Torres-García (1874-1949), Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974), and Shelia Hicks (1934-) to show a pan-American desire to find indigenous roots applicable to the modern day through universalism. These different avenues of Albers's work, her Bauhaus education, study of Peruvian weavings, and dialogue with contemporary pan-American sources of universalism, point to her underlying belief that art was successful if it communicated a universal appeal and timelessness. In integrating Albers's weavings and writings in relation to her philosophy, I demonstrate the extent to which her art and writings engage intellectually and stylistically with modernism. This thesis contributes to the scholarship where previous studies of Albers have not thoroughly acknowledged her participation in the discourse of modern art through her use of modernist ideals, theories, and writings. I provide a unique intellectual history of a weaver's work that shows how theoretical foundations equate her weavings and writings with vanguardism. Using a language belonging to the plastic arts, she removed false divisions between art media and advanced her concept of universalism by creating a link between ancient craft and modern art. Show less